Is Europe crossing line between impassioned criticism of Israel’s policies and anti-Semitism?

The first two rules in writing an editorial are get the facts right and avoid muddled thinking. Dana Spinant, the new editor of European Voice, fails both tests in her Europa column (‘Exaggeration of anti-Semitism in EU is no excuse for shielding of Sharon’, 19-25 February).

Accuracy first: the former splinter candidate for the US presidency and well-known political commentator from the right-wing – is Patrick A. Buchanan, not Paul. Also, the libellous canard describing Arnold Schwarzenegger as sympathetic to Nazi Germany is not true. It has been put to rest. Regardless of Schwarzenegger’s politics, no reputable Jewish organization supports the allegation.

The murky reasoning in the rest of the editorial is difficult to follow even though it says reports of anti-Semitism in Europe are exaggerated or, if it exists, that the US is no different in its attitudes.

The uncomfortable fact is that anti-Semitism has reappeared publicly in Europe. European unease with the ability of Jews in Israel to defend themselves for a change provides a handy excuse. Spinant quite rightly objects to the racist bigotry of Le Pen, Molleman and Haider. But she then says that they are unanimously condemned. Not so. They are national figures in their countries and have been popularly elected to posts at high levels.

Moreover, does Le Pen’s more strident anti-Arab position excuse his anti-Jewish remarks? Of course not, but that seems to be one of Dana Spinant’s arguments.

She argues that the thesis of rising anti-Semitism in Europe “can be refuted”, although such examples as the rise of attacks on Jews and Jewish establishments in France and England indicate otherwise. The very day Spinant’s article appeared, the International Herald Tribune carried a story based on news reports that anti-Semitic attacks in the UK rose sharply last year.

I have a straightforward, empirical dividing line to test anti-Semitism in Europe versus the US. For the many years I have lived in Europe, I have seen police protection or private security patrols in front of synagogues and Jewish cemeteries. I don’t see them in my own country, the US. They are not necessary in America. It is as simple as that.

Jonathan Kapstein

Brussels

…Spinant’s column implied that the firm attitude of the EU towards Israel might be somehow responsible for provoking “excitable reactions” from American and European Jewish organizations in Europe, over-emphasizing the case of a resurging anti-Semitism in Europe.

She is entitled to her opinion, but we believe that she is mixing two separate issues.

At the outset, we must state that acts of anti-Semitism should not be confused with opposition, however impassioned, to Israeli policies and actions. And this is where the core issue lies. The complexity of the new wave of anti-Semitism that Europe has been experiencing for the past few years is linked in part to the intellectual climate, in which politics and the media have sometimes crossed the line from objective, rationally grounded criticism of Israeli policies, to the use of anti-Semitic allusions. And we can state that, where classical Western anti-Semitism, such as blood libel imagery or the use of the protocols of the Elders of Zion, applies to any political portraying of Israel, we have clearly moved from a political opposition to policies that enter into the realm of chimerical anti-Semitism.

The media has to take responsibility for escalating the climate of hatred. There has been a resurgence of ancient medieval myths in the political cartoons of respected European newspapers in which several classic anti-Semitic stereotypes have reappeared: the Jew with the hooked nose, the myths of infanticide and deicide. It is not without justification that a silent unease has crept over Jewish communities in Europe. It is clear that it has not grown only from the criticism levelled at Israel, but from the appearance of images that are highly negative and loaded with innuendo.

In this context, the important seminar on anti-Semitism organized by the European Commission last week was a clear message sent to all Europeans that, to quote the institution’s President Romano Prodi’s words: “There is no place for anti-Semitism in a Europe of diversity.” We believe that anti-Semitism and Islamophobia must be eradicated.

Pascale Charhon

Vice-chairman, European Network Against Racism

Director of the Centre Européen Juif d’information

Bashy Quraishy

Chairman, European Network against Racism

Brussels

Congratulations for the very differentiated and intelligent comment on the issue of European anti-Semitism in EV of this week. I guess that you will receive a lot of support for this, but probably even more criticism.

I have only one comment of my own to make: I am not sure that anti-Semitism does not materialize in the US in the same way it does in Europe. While it is certainly not the US Arabic minority that would be active in this respect, the white supremacists and the radical blacks are without a doubt no philo-Semites.

Could it be that US news media just don’t want to look into this? Why are there UK polls about the acceptance of a Jewish PM, but nobody ever asks the same question in the US? Of course, this leads to the wider question of the disproportionate Jewish influence in the US media and politics, a taboo subject that nobody will ever touch as it would plainly be suicidal.